Like most definitions, the meaning of Timber Beast has morphed over the years. The first definition is how it is currently used, foresters abetting the timber industry’s greed. In the first part of the twentieth century, a timber beast was often at odds with “big timber.” IWW press referred to the men who worked as loggers in the lumber camps as “timber beasts,” apparently due to the way the men were treated. The timber beasts lived in isolated camps, far from towns and civilization.

The name is already undergoing changes in the time around World War II with Archie Binns’s book. The timber beast, Charlie Dow typifies the old-style high-balling logger. His sons though do not share his passion.

The term, timber beast, is mentioned in Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland. There the Timber Beast refers to membership in the IWW (International Workers of the World aka Wobblies). In Vineland, Crocker Scantling (according to the American Heritage Dictionary, a scantling is a “small timber used in construction.”) was hired (by a consortium of timber companies) to eradicate IWW timber beasts. According to Wikipedia, “The IWW lumber strike of 1917 led to the eight-hour day and vastly improved working conditions in the Pacific Northwest.”

There’s a song from that era, The Timber Beast’s Lament. You can find it on a CD by Utah PhllipsWe Have Fed You All A Thousand Years (Philo, released by Rounder Records). According to the Utah Phillip’s website, “George Milburn collected this unsigned I.W.W. poem and included it in The Hobo Hornbook [NEW YORK, 1930]. It’s source is not known.”